There are
two types of people in this world, one who live to eat and others who eat to
live. I fall in second category, I never cared about food. Anything which had
proper salt as was available to me I ate. But I got married to someone who falls
in a different category altogether. My husband is a foodie, who loves his food.
He is someone who doesn’t believe in quantity but in quality of food.
After
marriage the first and the biggest change happened in me was the improvement in
my culinary skills. For his love for food, I stared reading food blogs and
subscribed to many food channels to learn new recopies but I failed to get
perfect 10 from him every time. I made his favourite breakfast Aloo poha, by following
the same recipe which I learn from his mom. It tasted almost same, but he was
not impressed. I made his favourite Daal tadka by following exactly same recipe
from master chef Sanjeev Kapoor. It tasted good to me but he was not impressed.
I went through tones of videos and made delicious Dum Biryani, he ate full
plate but still did not praise my food. I was heartbroken and decided to give-up
on cooking. I poured my heart to him and said I will not cook anymore, and he
should better hire a cook. That was when he told me that he loves my cooking,
my food tastes good and the effort put to learn all the dishes is something he
adores but what my cooking lacks is the presentation skill.
I argued “Presentation
skill?? I need to prepare a PPT for my food or what?”
He hugged me
and said “Honey! As you see the cloth first and when you like the print on it
then only you touch it and decided on buying it. Same way, when one sees the
food it should be appealing, and then only one feels that desire to eat it.”
“What food
should look appealing?” I jerked my shoulders
He came
close to me and said “just close your eyes and imagine you have 2 plates of Aloo
poha in front of you. One is just a plate full of pale Aloo poha and the other
one is a steaming hot plate full of bright yellow Aloo poha, which is nicely
garnished with fresh coriander leaves and deep fried green chillies with a
piece of lemon on side. Which one will you pick?”
I opened my
eyes “obviously the second one.” I said excitingly.
“You see,
you tasted the food with your eyes and selected which one is worth getting
tasted by your tongue.” he was smiling like a proud parent.
I got my
most important lessen of cooking that day from my husband. I was already
feeling hungry after talking of food and so I prepared Dum biryani that day. I
served the steaming hot spicy Dum briyani nicely garnished with deep fried
onion slices and mint leafs in a beautiful serving bowl. I served chilled Raita
in a glass bowl with coriander leaves dressing on it and a plate full of nicely
cut cucumber, onions and tomatoes followed it. My husband loved the way the
food was presented and I felt proud of my cooking.
There on, I
always try to present my food in an interesting and appealing way then just
putting it as it is on table. Nice crockery is as important for a dish to look
appealing as right amount of salt and spices for a dish to taste good. As the
old saying goes that the way to man’s heart starts from his stomach, however for
the modern cosmopolitan man the way to his heart goes through his stomach but
it always starts from his eyes ;)
